Other people noticed that "mainstream bloggers" are talking "rethug-like"

[RaulVB]

Link below.

Very interesting piece about "liberal bloggers" that gained "legitimacy" as a result of the election 2004 but when they saw the fraud decided to go AWOL, joining "*", I guess.

http://watchingthewatchers.org/index.php?p=228

[EFerrari]

1. Raul, once you step into that whole way of thinking, it's like

quicksand I guess. Yes, I've noticed that. Hell, I've even noticed my own thinking going that way. Hard, when you're in a continual propaganda deluge, to keep your bearings. Our greatest challenge, imo.

[RaulVB]

4. You know, is hard for me to understand that type of people...

I have always tried hard to tell the truth and put up with the consequences.

Is not so hard if you really believe in something...

[EFerrari]

10. the problem is in the language itself. once you start speaking it

it's hard to step out of. your language can actually change what it's possible for you to say. it can be a way to freedom or a prison.

[Malva Zebrina]

2. Yup, I am wearing my barrel, holding my torch, looking for an honest man.

You want to make money--you go with the flow.

[NWHarkness]

3. Oh please

Everyone who doesn't march lock step with everything you think is therefore on Bush's side?

[RaulVB]

5. No, but if you're not honest, chances are...(n/t)

[righteous1]

6. Fankly people with that sort of mindset are not even worth talking

to. Like a phonograph record can neither change their content nor accept anything additional

[The Gigmeister]

14. You include Senator Kerry with "people of that sort of mindset"???

[righteous1]

37. No i don't n/t

[rinsd]

7. Interesting?

Yeah between an angry nonsensical rant about Kos becoming a sellout and then some rant about Wonkette betraying liberals(last I checked she was most famous for writing a DC celebrity gossip column...oh and ass fucking).

The writer sounds like most of the other self absorbed "everything would be fine if you listened to me" blogs that sink to the bottom of the sphere.

Yeah all Kos does is give visibility and collect money for liberal candidates and he does a bang up job on polls. What a freakin sellout :eyes:

But screaming like a two year old and blasting potential allies is a sure fire way in this crazy world of ours to get attention which the writer seems to sorely crave.

[RaulVB]

8. He is entitled to his own opinion, you are entitled to yours

And since KOS went public with his site he better has the balls to keep up with the "leadership" he has "gained".

You can't go around insulting decent people who knows what happened on November 2nd, I think.

[rinsd]

56. Of course he's entitled to his opinion

I just don't see what's so interesting about a blogger screaming sellout about someone whose done a whole hell of alot more for the party than said blogger.

[alevensalor]

33. Thank you for that insightful commentary

and bonus psycho-analysis. I appreciate that. You have just saved me tons of money in future psychiatric evaluation and treatment. I see it now! I am a screaming two-year old! Oh, thank god for mean-spirited people, I'm saved!

~A!

[rinsd]

55. No sweat...thanks for the glowing example of your maturity (nt)

[Melech Hamoshiach]

54. Hey

If if it weren't for ass-fucking, and the fact that she's hot, oh, and that she outed Washingtonienne, would anyone read Wonkette?

[rinsd]

57. LOL...

Don't forget her introspective on the size of Kerry's and Cheney's package.

Thank god we have her fighting on the front lines!

[Eric J in MN]

9. When wonkette made fun of the idea that there was anything

wrong with the Ohio recount, it made me skeptical she had done much reading on things like the cheat-sheets from the voting machine-companies and the 3% hand-count rule in Ohio.

[EFerrari]

11. No, she just read the AP like all her friends. n/t

[KoKo]

44. Wonkette was the "Toast of DC" along with Marshall & Kos in an article

about the NEW "BLOGGIN STARS" written just after the "Repug Convention."

I forget whether it was WaPoo, NYT's or whatever but it was MSM that annointed them. I figured that the Internet "young Turks" were going to end up being compromised when I read that. It was like the sound of the "Death Knell Bell Ringing."

I also know that one of my favorite Blogs "Whiskey Bar" said that "BLOGS" were going to go "Mainstream and be Compromised." Billmon stopped posting after that, because he knew the Blogs would become a new "Bastardized Reality TV" of the Internet.

I think many of us will have to "dig deep" to find the "newer blogs" and then watch as they in turn, become compromised and become "MSM."

Hopefully there's enough NEW STUFF AND NEW PEOPLE "Blogging" that the "well" will never run dry for Progressive/Activist/Grassroots/Populists folks to keep going when the "others" become the "Media Whores" of the Internet replacing the MSM.. :shrug:

[alevensalor]

49. I'm not in the mood to sell out

I started WatchingTheWatchers for exactly the reasons you state. I hate the main stream media, and I've always been a fucked up little sot, and I have a regular job.

Fighting with people is just for fun, I have no allegience to the MSM. That'll be tougher to say when they notice me, though, won't it?

I wonder, if my blog gets big, will I become the next sellout bitch?

I hope not.

~A!

[RaulVB]

12. Once she saw her own picture on the "NYT Magazine" well...

I guess she assumed that she had "arrived", I guess.

[The Gigmeister]

13. So....Democrats can't have differing views?

Personally I stand with Senator Kerry (And many of those bloggers) on this issue. I trust Senator Kerry knows more about this issue than all the people who bash him for "Not standing up for them" combined. And I challenge anyone to give me a coherent reason why I shouldn't trust him. And you can't blame it on some Skull and Bones kook conspiracy either.

The word "Fraud" gets thrown around here like trash...It's almost lost its meaning.

[RaulVB]

15. For me, this is not about Kerry

If he doesn't get it, I feel sorry for him.

[The Gigmeister]

17. Senator Kerry has more to lose than ANYONE!!!

So here are your choices concerning this so-called "Wide spreak fraud"...Please chose one...

1) He's clueless. His aids are clueless. Everyone who advises him is clueless.

2) He's in on some kind of whacky Skull and Bones conspiracy with the Idiot in Chief.

3) He's got the IQ of Forest Gump.


There are no other options. Please have the guts to chose one.

[RaulVB]

19. Many other options

BTW, I don't follow talking points.

[The Gigmeister]

23. That's what I thought.

No answers. Just keep disrupting with unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

[RaulVB]

24. You, talking about "disrupting"??? (n/t)

[The Gigmeister]

25. Yes.

I am convinced many of these conspiracy theorists are just yanking chains.

I honestly can't stand to think they're serious.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Gigmeister]

27. No...I'm sane...I believe in reality.

And I don't like being embarrassed. Sue me.

[RaulVB]

28. Let me see if Ken Blackwell can help me to "sue you" (n/t)

[The Gigmeister]

29. Well...He IS one of the Boogie Men!!

And I'm a Democrat. And God knows, these Boogie Men ONLY go after Democrats!! Helps keep us down and in bed instead of facing reality and working to win in the future.

Yeah...I'm sure he'll help you. Anything to advance the conspiracy.

[RaulVB]

39. Gotcha...Blackwell is "honest"...(n/t)

[euler]

34. Fraud is thrown around like trash

Yes. No one seems to know the difference between fraud and mistakes, poor planning, incorrect formulas, buggy software or bad hardware.

Sure many of the computers may have been tampered with, but before fraud can be assumed as the cause, you must first rule out other possibilities.

For example, touch screens are small computers. If you press the Kerry button and the vote is recorded to Bush, it's not automatically fraud. Maybe the screen was not calibrated properly, maybe the instrument used to calibrate the screen was faulty, maybe the software is buggy. For crying out loud, it's a computer - has anyone ever had a problem with their computer ? If so, was it caused by someone tampering with it, or did it just happen for no apparent reason ? In most cases, the latter is true. To show fraud, you must rule out these possibilities. However, no one at DU seem to cares about doing that and that's wrong.

just my little rant.

[RaulVB]

35. Sure, but...

Maybe you could look up the issue from the other side, just for a minute?

[Bouvet_Island]

53. Faulty,

like a lot of the people here I used computers since I was a kid, I also have a university course in Human Computer Interface design and how you use something called NGOMS to predict learning, efficiency and error proneness in critical computer systems.

This is a surprisingly exact science where you budget and measure stuff in millisecond ranges and account for short and long term memory etc, most of the psychology and theory is from the 60s and 70s. For anyone making critical systems like nuclear power plants, cockpit layouts or banking applications on a certain level, this is bread and butter.

In itself, designing in usual errors that benefit one candidate is a very perfect way of pushing the result, there are several reports of this happening in New Mexico. To me this is a little further indication of intent and culture and an obvious result of bad regulation, nothing more as of yet. Because it is not nearly enough to account for the differences in voting seen between different equipment there. If you find a thread here called something like 4/1 jan election fraud thread, there is a summary of the important documents written by people that actually thought about what you mention and lotsa other stuff.

We know it is a computer, but it was made by people that know how to make something safe. They should also be open for the economics of vote fraud, what do You think a presidential election would be worth? There is no "trust" or faith whatsoever in any sound election system, or banking system. They are using the biggest universal excuse in history to remove the checks and balances, as well as making the logistics and risks smaller than for sending spam. You have to lock banks, and election processes, for pretty much the same reason.

You might remember a company called Enron, they actually had a supercomputer that calculated the cost of swallowing versus changing new energy policies with armies of lawyers and "grass roots" efforts. You might remeber that Kenneth Lay had ties to Bush and that there is a large effort in the aftermath to get all white collar criminals in jail. Now go and check how many of them were investigated, and evicted in the years before and after Enron. This is public information. It is not a good idea to let the richest people in the US get any influence on how elections are made.

I think you maybe are not very informed on the government control of the voting machines, that there actually isn´t independent testing and no real security tests.

Do you know for a fact that 51% of the cases is an example of things like problems with touchscreens? Did you see any of the problems with voting equipment accounted for? And what level of error do you think one should accept from vote equipment before one decide the result from similar equipment maybe was wrong?

"To show fraud, you must rule out these possibilities" is not true, there are numerous ways of doing this like Ukraine type exit polls, smoking gun, or legal efforts based on the fact people are hiding information that should be innocent. You could also have a media campaign a la WMDs, that would be able to "show" anything you like, independently from fact.

If you were trying to talk about information strategy instead of how you assess the seriousness of the situation, I think your point is very moot, Fraud would be the word we should make people hear many times, as there surely are someone that will be evictable at a point in time and any middle sized justice process would open peoples heads more than sufficiently for the important message. If we find anything, we should be publicly suspicious first, thus making them Hide something, then our suspicion "grows". We should obviously be Right, but if you filter a little and read the basics, you maybe will find out we already are.

[Verve]

16. The problem is to believe in election fraud,most people have to completely

shift their attitudes about this great country we live in. Instead of being this wonderful country who sets standards for the rest of the world, we are just another corrupt dictatorship. A pretty tough pill to swallow for the majority of Americans.

It's easier to live in denial.

[RaulVB]

18. That is exactly right!

And let me tell you, that speaks really, really bad about those who call themselves "liberals."

[cali]

21. Ha. As if i've ever been a rah rah scales on the eyes

booster of America right or wrong. People can view things differently without being naive boosters of the electoral process.

[KoKo]

20. Here's a "snip" from the article which you didn't post...which says MUCHO

(I assume you were talking to your friends here on DU and figured they already knew what you were talking about...but leaving "others" (not in your group) to go to the article and "cut and paste."

Anyway...here's what you are talking about...in case you want a wider DU audience. :-(

-------
And these two blogs are the ones the media always chooses to represent us. And why not, when they are the most popular? Hell, Markos is on Air America every week or so, talking about the blogosphere like he owns the fucking thing, and Wonkette is forever giving interviews as if she has a fucking clue.

Yeah, people read your blogs, but you’re not doing your job any more. You’re becoming just like the dickheads over at Fox, guys, where you play the fiddle you’re supposed to play to get hits. I’ve got an idea, since you’ve already got the traffic, and are making a ton of money off your sites: Have enough integrity not to sell out and be just another media outlet. Talk about the things that aren’t getting talked about.

Or come out of the closet and admit to being sellouts. Or don’t you have the balls?

[RaulVB]

22. I think that's why I POSTED THE LINK...

BTW, you'll be surprised at how smart is the average DUer!

[KoKo]

30. I've never been into questioning the intelligence of my fellow DU'ers....

we are the smartest, most patriotic activists here in America...and have been walking down those roads for over four years now..



I hope you were just being ironic and not snarky. :D

[RaulVB]

32. Oh yes, I was!

Glad you got it...:evilgrin:

[Karmadillo]

38. Stupid question, but how much is "a ton of money" with respect to

a blog? I can see where a blogger might hold back in order to get "mainstream credibility", but is there really a lot of money at stake, too?

[RaulVB]

40. Not stupid at all

Advertisement can flow to your site if you gain some MSM coverage.

That can be good money, actually.

[alevensalor]

46. Kos gets $2500 a month for his premium spot.

So yes, the money can be there, if you have a lotta lotta hits.

~A!

[KoKo]

47. Lotsa Hits is what it's ALL ABOUT....Look at Mr. Drudge...

:D...so many... One can make a tidy little income off the Net. Don't need those "middlemen." Just a server..and some great talent with Interactive Webpage Design. (that's the hardest part) but after that...it would seem to be a "snap."

But, $2,400. a month isn't much when you pay bills, health care. If you are controversial enough...you can bring in "Political Donors" on top of the advertising bucks.. If you get lucky you get a "REALLY BIG DONOR" who wants to run you...it depends on how far one wants or needs to go to make a living. It's all about "compromise." :shrug:

If one is "independently wealthy" no problem...then it's fun..say what you want,do what you want. Not all are so lucky...

[alevensalor]

48. No no no

That's just for one Ad Spot, The premium one. Go to Blogads.com, and check out the prices for putting an Ad on Kos' site. It's insane.

~A!

[RaulVB]

51. Shit!

From $ 600 to $ 2.200 a single ad in the preferential spot!

Very "philantropic"...

[alevensalor]

52. Yeah.

I don't have Blogads. I have no desire to have blogads. I like money, but my blog's mine, why would I sell it to advertisers. That's what fucking Sinclair does.

~A!

[alevensalor]

31. A note from the author of the post

Let me tell y'all a little something about my blog. It's my little hole in the wall, 2000 hits a week drivel, and you don't have to agree with it, and you don't have to like it. Someone commented that I obviously crave the attention, but I could really give a shit.

I blog for me, and if that makes me a whiny two year old, well, that's not your problem, now is it? That would be a problem for my therapist, I think.

In short, you can say what you want about the site, or about how I slaughtered your sacred cow. Heh, if you think that was bad, read the post right after it. That should really piss you off. :>

~A!

[RaulVB]

36. I like your style

That's why I posted your comments.

I read your blog quite often.

Regards.

[alevensalor]

42. Thanks for the kind words, Raul. n/t

[KoKo]

41. Hey...alevensalor, I thought your post was dead on! What are you pissed

about..:shrug:

[alevensalor]

45. I'm not pissed at the majority, guys

I probably misrepresented a little bit in that post here, sorry about that. It just irks me when people think I'm posting for them, or to get attention for myself. I don't care about hits, and I won't sell out my opinions for the majority.

And I agree, I also thought the post was dead-on. ;)

~A!

[EFerrari]

43. Good steaks from said cow. I've never read your blog before and

am glad Raul posted it.

[alevensalor]

50. I appreciate that

Thank you.

~A!